R.E.M. has followed up the recent release of its deluxe multi-disc expanded reissue of 1992’s Automatic For the People with a new 24-minute mini-documentary about the making of that record, a film called “Automatic Unearthed” that is streaming on YouTube and features new interviews with band members Michael Stipe, Mike Mills and Peter Buck (sorry, no Bill Berry), along with producer Scott Litt and Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones, who contributed orchestral arrangements.
Watch the full program below.
PREVIOUSLY ON SLICING UP EYEBALLS
- R.E.M. streams ‘recently discovered’ footage of sole ‘Automatic For the People’ concert
- Listen: R.E.M., ‘Devil Rides Backwards’ — unreleased ‘Automatic for the People’ demo
- Listen: R.E.M., ‘Mike’s Pop Song’ — unreleased ‘Automatic For the People’ demo
- R.E.M.’s 4-disc ‘Automatic For the People’ reissue to include demos, Greenpeace live set
- Watch: Mike Mills, Peter Buck resurrect R.E.M.’s ‘Texarkana,’ enlist Corin Tucker for ‘One I Love’
- The absolute best of R.E.M.: All 282 songs ranked by Slicing Up Eyeballs’ readers
Oh stop already. You know you want to reunite as much as the fans do. Automatic wasn’t that amazing to begin with. Just get on with it while you’re all on this side of the sod!
Agreed. In part, anyway.
AFTP is a very amazing album, but yeah, c’mon guys, it’s time for a reunion. You’ve had your break. Your fans and the world need you.
Automatic was (and remains) a watershed statement, and it’s great that it’s getting such a deluxe treatment with this reissue.
It’s hard to believe they wouldn’t have another great album in them, if they ever chose to get back together and channel it. In my dreams, it steps back a bit from the bombast and big-studio production values toward an earlier, more organic sound, balancing the reflection of AFTP, the defiance of Lifes Rich Pageant, and the tone of “Until the Day is Done.” As you say, the world could really use that record right now, and there’s no one else around to make it.
Accelerate proved they were still capable of IRS era brilliance. I guess I am a minority but I was not thrilled with “Automatic.”
If I go my life never hearing “Drive,” “Everybody Hurts,” “Nightswimming,” “Man on the Moon,” and “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite” again, I won’t shed any tears.
UE405 — very well said!
And oh, your vision for that album has me salivating already for it.
Come on Michael, Peter, Bill and Mike, you can do this!